Black Sunsets

While the Guild was working in Kelsler, the Illithids had a plan for the Guild. They needed to keep eyes on the Guild and on Starbridge but somethings was blocking them from using divination.

A team was sent into the city itself, disguised as refugees. They spent several weeks in the city, learning the layout and investigating the location. They discovered that large crystals had been brought into the city and stored in locations around the city. They had only found one location though and inflitrated the building. There they found the crystal set in formation and bound with Abjuration and Divination magics. They tore down the formation and took one of the crystals back to their Illithid masters.

As they left, they launched a pearl into the air. They watched it burst into a flare, lighting up the night. This flare signaled the attack for the forces laying in wait outside the city. The army of the Underdark swarmed the city, burning and destroying everything in their wake. The city was not utterly destoryed but that was not the point. The message had been sent. The real conflict was soon to begin.

The Guild sent them immediately north to the city of Ghostwalk, where the dead walk among the living. On the way, they stopped a roadside Inn and heard a tale of a skeleton made of silver that was being hid somewhere in the area. they also heard tale of a Paladin of Sarenrae name Elucdia. They were also enlisted by the owner of the Inn to help in resolving issues witha Kobold tribe living in the local aqueduct.

There they found the skeleton they had been told about in the Inn suspending within a Gelatinous Cube. With the cube destroyed, the skeleton began to regenerate, thanks to a Ring of Regeneration on its finger. The skeleton turned out to be Elucdia herself, a succubus that had turned against her demonic nature to serve Sarenrae as a Paladin.

They ventured into the aqueduct again, this time at the behest of Elucdia, to retrieve a set of bracers held by the Kobolds. In the Kobolds den, they encountered the former leader of the tribe who had turned himself into a mummy.

The mummy slain, they turned again north with the gratitude Elucdia and the Inn’s owner. There the found the ghost of Vizerian who was to cast a divination for the Guild. The visit however was short lived as the divination revealed horror. They returned to Starbridge only to find the city in flames and guild in chaos. The Underdark had attacked with Illithids in the lead. War had began.

Though there was some concern about the Voidmind that was encountered, the Guild worked as normal and accepted more jobs, including one with a bit of the strange.

A group from the Mercenary Guild was sent to the village Kelsler to find a reason for a strange phenomenon. The village and the surrounding landscape was being engulfed by shadow. And the shadow was expanding. The culprit turned out to be a a pair of planar rifts opening to the Plan of Shadow. specifically, into an area of plane known… as the Darklands, a region infused with Negative Energy.

This Negative Energy is suffusing the entire area, sicking the old, the children and infirm. The portals were found and studied by a Wizard named Vizerian. And Vizerian had lost his grip on reality.

After much searching, the group was able to close the portals but after closing the last portal, Vizerian was found murdered. The culprit was the the town’s blacksmith, who had been turned into a Voidmind. He was slain, but not before it was found that Illithids had interfered with Vizerian’s experiments and driven him mad.

This crisis was averted and the group was greeted by a Trumpet Archon. The Archon gave the group the thanks of his patron, the Goddess Sarenrae. But they could not rest. They immediately sent north by the Guild.

It began when the Mercenary Guild of the City of Starbridge received a simple request: Retrieve a set of sacred stones stolen from a little known kingdom. Luckily, they had a lead to start with. Possible sightings of a stone from the hamlet of Insernamere.

A group was dispatched and, in time, all three stones found. However, they found a few surprises. The heist of the stones was performed by a human who had been turned into a Voidmind, a slave of the Illithids. And, while they were told there were 12 stones, each tied to a sign of the Zodiac, they found a 13th stone, bearing the sign of the Serpent. They also found a silver compass that bore a message in Sylvan: “He who is attuned shall find he who bears the blood of the god of mortal brutes.” Both the serpent stone and compass were taken to the Guild.

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.